Fox Cries "Overregulation" Even When EPA Backs Industry

December 4, 2012 2:37 PM EST ›››
MAX GREENBERG

Fox News is suggesting that the Environmental Protection Agency is targeting the logging industry, citing water runoff standards as an instance of "overregulation." But the EPA actually exempted the industry from the standards in question and is siding with them in a Supreme Court case on the matter.

On Monday's edition of Fox News' evening news show Special Report, reporter Shannon Bream claimed that the Obama administration has recently proposed "6,000 new regulations," and suggested that the Environmental Protection Agency was adding to this "overregulation" with standards for water runoff from logging roads:

But Fox got it backwards -- the EPA is actually "backing Oregon and the timber industry," according to CNN. A 2010 Circuit Court of Appeals decision ruled that rain runoff from roads used for logging required permits under the Clean Water Act as this runoff can be deadly to downstream wildlife. The logging industry appealed the ruling, but before the case got to the Supreme Court the EPA issued final rules that reportedly "exempted logging road runoff from storm water permit requirements." The EPA states that it "did not intend for logging roads to be regulated as industrial facilities," but the industry is asking the Supreme Court to nevertheless rule on the case.

As for Fox's claim that the administration has imposed "6,000 new regulations," these notices "run the gamut from meeting notifications to fee schedules to actual rules and proposed rule changes," according to the conservative website CNSNews.com.